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Sounds of UCL: competition winners and panoramas

19 April 2013

What sounds make up London’s global university? UCL Communications has announced the winners of its ‘Sounds of UCL’ competition, which invited staff and students to capture ambient audio clips that reflect the life of UCL.

All the tracks, along with the other submissions, are embedded below in two audio panoramas of UCL created by UCL Communications. They also appear in the Sounds of UCL set on the UCL SoundCloud channel, which has 200,000 followers.

Kate Oliver (UCL Engineering) and Dr Kevin Drake (UCL Mechanical Engineering) shared first place for their recordings of the wave tank in Mechanical Engineering. Kate Oliver’s track builds from gentle lulling to loud roar. Dr Kevin Drake created an imaginative recording of lute playing next to the tank. Daniel Kordik (UCL Library Services) came second for his window into life in the library before it opens and Andrew Dehany (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) took third place with his recording of a room full of refrigerators. The winners received vouchers for online stores.

The recordings are all published on SoundCloud under Creative Commons, so that sound artists can remix and sample the sounds in their own work. The competition was designed not only to present the life of UCL from a different perspective, but also to engage people outside the UCL community in university activity in an innovative way. The panoramas and SoundCloud set will be maintained on an ongoing basis, so further short audio recordings illustrating UCL life are welcomed. You can submit these to Rob Eagle via the UCL Dropbox.